Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Mencius - Book 6, Part 1, Chapter 18

Mencius said, 'Benevolence subdues its opposite just as water subdues fire. Those, however, who now-a-days practice benevolence do it as if with one cup of water they could save a whole wagon-load of fuel which was on fire, and when the flames were not extinguished, were to say that water cannot subdue fire. This conduct, moreover, greatly encourages those who are not benevolent.

'The final issue will simply be this the loss of that small amount of benevolence.'
~ James Legge translation via nothingistic.org ~
 Go here to read the introductory post to this serialized version of the Works of Mencius.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.